‘Appeals’ quashes four-year jail against Chinese woman – ‘Decision violates Constitution’

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KUWAIT CITY, Dec 17: The Court of Appeals overturned a verdict issued by the Criminal Court which sentenced a Chinese woman to four-year imprisonment. It instead acquitted her of smuggling liquor. The Public Prosecution had accused the woman of dodging customs to smuggle 12,000 bottles of beer and 200 bottles of wine into the country with the intention of selling them. However, the defense counsel Lawyer Dr Khaled Falah Al-Kafifa presented documents to prove her innocence, stressing on the absence of incriminating evidences against her client. He not only based his defense on Kuwait alone but he also verified with the Chamber of Commerce of China for documents to prove the nullity of the charges as the cargo was mistakenly sent to Kuwait by a company which confessed that the shipment was headed to a neighboring country and not Kuwait or to his client.

MoI decision cancelled: The Administrative Court of Appeals chaired by Judge Hamoud Al-Mutawa cancelled the decision of Ministry of Interior to place a Kuwaiti ex-convict on surveillance after he got Amiri pardon, declaring the decision violates the Constitution and reality. Plaintiff Lawyer Hisham Abdul-Aziz Al-Fahad said his client was handed a jail term for consuming and peddling hashish. He was serving his term when he obtained Amiri pardon exempting him from paying any fine. He was surprised when he discovered the ministry had been trailing him since his release in 2013 on claims that an order to that effect is issued against ex-convicts for drug related cases. He stressed the ministry has placed travel ban on his client to the extent that he has to give one month notice to the correctional institution whenever he wants to travel abroad. He has been subjected to tests to ascertain he is not consuming narcotics, besides suspending his transactions with the ministry until an approval is secured from the correctional institution.

‘Give full privileges’: The court has obligated the government, represented by its “Public Authority for Affairs of People with Special Needs” to give a citizen full financial privileges and allowances for his mentally-challenged child, ruling that the payment should be made from the time the mental condition started and not from the day the disability certificate was issued. Presenting the citizen was Lawyer Ayed Al-Rashidi, who stressed that his client’s son was affected with permanent mental disability from the time he was born. According to law No. 8/2010 related to the rights of people with special needs, the concerned authority is supposed to pay allowances for the child and his mother since the day the law was passed until the day when the disability certificate was issued. However, the authority refused to pay the allowances. Lawyer Al-Rashidi explained that the law was not passed before the child was born. However, he deserves the allowances and financial rights from the day the law was passed and not from the day the disability certificate was issued.

By Jaber Al-Hamoud Al-Seyassah Staff

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